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The university is made up of 38 constituent colleges, and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions.[16] All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities.[17] It does not have a main campus, and its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. Undergraduate teaching at Oxford is organised around weekly tutorials at the colleges and halls, supported by classes, lectures, seminars, and laboratory work provided by university faculties and departments; some postgraduate teaching includes tutorials organised by faculties and departments. It operates the world's oldest university museum, as well as the largest university press in the world[18] and the largest academic library system nationwide.[19] The university is consistently cited as among the world's best.[20][21]

History

Founding

The University of Oxford has no known foundation date.[25] Teaching at Oxford existed in some form as early as 1096, but it is unclear when a university came into being.[2] It grew quickly in 1167 when English students returned from the University of Paris.[2] The historian Gerald of Wales lectured to such scholars in 1188 and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland, arrived in 1190. The head of the university had the title of chancellor from at least 1201, and the masters were recognised as a universitas or corporation in 1231. The university was granted a royal charter in 1248 during the reign of King Henry III.[26]

In 1333-34, an attempt by some dissatisfied Oxford scholars to found a new university at Stamford, Lincolnshire, was blocked by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioning King Edward III.[34] Thereafter, until the 1820s, no new universities were allowed to be founded in England, even in London; thus, Oxford and Cambridge had a duopoly, which was unusual in large western European countries.[35][36]

Renaissance period

In 1605 Oxford was still a walled city, but several colleges had been built outside the city walls (north is at the bottom on this map)

With the English Reformation and the breaking of communion with the Roman Catholic Church, recusant scholars from Oxford fled to continental Europe, settling especially at the University of Douai.[37] The method of teaching at Oxford was transformed from the medieval scholastic method to Renaissance education, although institutions associated with the university suffered losses of land and revenues. As a centre of learning and scholarship, Oxford's reputation declined in the Age of Enlightenment; enrolments fell and teaching was neglected.

In 1636[38]William Laud, the chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury, codified the university's statutes. These, to a large extent, remained its governing regulations until the mid-19th century. Laud was also responsible for the granting of a charter securing privileges for the University Press, and he made significant contributions to the Bodleian Library, the main library of the university. From the beginnings of the Church of England as the established church until 1866, membership of the church was a requirement to receive the BA degree from the university and "dissenters" were only permitted to receive the MA in 1871.[39]

An engraving of Christ Church, Oxford, 1742

The university was a centre of the Royalist party during the English Civil War (1642-1649), while the town favoured the opposing Parliamentarian cause.[40] From the mid-18th century onwards, however, the university took little part in political conflicts.

Modern period

Students

Before reforms in the early 19th century the curriculum at Oxford was notoriously narrow and impractical. Sir Spencer Walpole, a historian of contemporary Britain and a senior government official, had not attended any university. He says, "few medical men, few solicitors, few persons intended for commerce or trade, ever dreamed of passing through a university career." He quotes the Oxford University Commissioners in 1852 stating: "The education imparted at Oxford was not such as to conduce to the advancement in life of many persons, except those intended for the ministry."[41] Nevertheless, Walpole argued:

Among the many deficiencies attending a university education there was, however, one good thing about it, and that was the education which the undergraduates gave themselves. It was impossible to collect some thousand or twelve hundred of the best young man in England, to give them the opportunity of making acquaintance with one another, and full liberty to live their lives in their own way, without evolving in the best among them, some admirable qualities of loyalty, independence, and self-control. If the average undergraduate carried from University little or no learning, which was of any service to him, he carried from it a knowledge of men and respect for his fellows and himself, a reverence for the past, a code of honour for the present, which could not but be serviceable. He had enjoyed opportunities... of intercourse with men, some of whom were certain to rise to the highest places in the Senate, in the Church, or at the Bar. He might have mixed with them in his sports, in his studies, and perhaps in his debating society; and any associations which he had this formed had been useful to him at the time, and might be a source of satisfaction to him in after life.[42]

Out of the students who matriculated in 1840, 65% were sons of professionals (34% were Anglican ministers). After graduation 87% became professionals (59% as Anglican clergy). Out of the students who matriculated in 1870, 59% were sons of professionals (25% were Anglican ministers). After graduation 87% became professionals (42% as Anglican clergy).[43][44]

M. C. Curthoys and H. S. Jones argue that the rise of organised sport was one of the most remarkable and distinctive features of the history of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was carried over from the athleticism prevalent at the public schools such as Eton, Winchester, Shrewsbury, and Harrow.[45]

At the start of 1914 the university housed about 3,000 undergraduates and about 100 postgraduate students. During the First World War many undergraduates and Fellows joined the armed forces. By 1918 virtually all Fellows were in uniform, and the student population in residence was reduced to 12 per cent[of what?].[46] The University Roll of Service records that, in total, 14,792 members of the university served in the war, with 2,716 (18.36%) killed.[47] Not all the members of the university who served in the Great War were on the Allied side; there is a remarkable memorial to members of New College who served in the German armed forces, bearing the inscription, 'In memory of the men of this college who coming from a foreign land entered into the inheritance of this place and returning fought and died for their country in the war 1914-1918'. During the war years the university buildings became hospitals, cadet schools and military training camps.[46]

Reforms

Two parliamentary commissions in 1852 issued recommendations for Oxford and Cambridge. Archibald Campbell Tait, former headmaster of Rugby School, was a key member of the Oxford Commission; he wanted Oxford to follow the German and Scottish model in which the professorship was paramount. The Commission's report envisioned a centralised university run predominantly by professors and faculties, with a much stronger emphasis on research. The professional staff should be strengthened and better paid. For students, restrictions on entry should be dropped, and more opportunity given to poorer families. It called for an enlargement of the curriculum, with honours to be awarded in many new fields. Undergraduate scholarships should be open to all Britons. Graduate fellowships should be opened up to all members of the university. It recommended that fellows be released from an obligation for ordination. Students were to be allowed to save money by boarding in the city, instead of in a college.[48][49]

The system of separate honour schools for different subjects began in 1802, with Mathematics and Literae Humaniores.[50] Schools of "Natural Sciences" and "Law, and Modern History" were added in 1853.[50] By 1872, the last of these had split into "Jurisprudence" and "Modern History". Theology became the sixth honour school.[51] In addition to these B.A. Honours degrees, the postgraduate Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) was, and still is, offered.[52]

Administrative reforms during the 19th century included the replacement of oral examinations with written entrance tests, greater tolerance for religious dissent, and the establishment of four women's colleges. Privy Council decisions in the 20th century (e.g. the abolition of compulsory daily worship, dissociation of the Regius Professorship of Hebrew from clerical status, diversion of colleges' theological bequests to other purposes) loosened the link with traditional belief and practice. Furthermore, although the university's emphasis had historically been on classical knowledge, its curriculum expanded during the 19th century to include scientific and medical studies. Knowledge of Ancient Greek was required for admission until 1920, and Latin until 1960.

The University of Oxford began to award doctorates in the first third of the 20th century. The first Oxford DPhil in mathematics was awarded in 1921.[53]

The mid-20th century saw many distinguished continental scholars, displaced by Nazism and communism, relocating to Oxford.

The list of distinguished scholars at the University of Oxford is long and includes many who have made major contributions to politics, the sciences, medicine, and literature. More than 50 Nobel laureates and more than 50 world leaders have been affiliated with the University of Oxford.[22]

Women's education

The university passed a statute in 1875 allowing examinations for women at roughly undergraduate level;[54] for a brief period in the early 1900s, this allowed the "steamboat ladies" to receive ad eundem degrees from the University of Dublin.[55] In June 1878, the Association for the Higher Education of Women (AEW) was formed, aiming for the eventual creation of a college for women in Oxford. Some of the more prominent members of the association were George Granville Bradley, T. H. Green and Edward Stuart Talbot. Talbot insisted on a specifically Anglican institution, which was unacceptable to most of the other members. The two parties eventually split, and Talbot's group founded Lady Margaret Hall in 1878, while T. H. Green founded the non-denominational Somerville College in 1879.[56] Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville opened their doors to their first 21 students (12 from Somerville, 9 from Lady Margaret Hall) in 1879, who attended lectures in rooms above an Oxford baker's shop.[54] There were also 25 women students living at home or with friends in 1879, a group which evolved into the Society of Oxford Home-Students and in 1952 into St Anne's College.[57][58]

These first three societies for women were followed by St Hugh's (1886)[59] and St Hilda's (1893).[60] All of these colleges later became coeducational, starting with Lady Margaret Hall and St Anne's in 1979,[61][62] and finishing with St Hilda's, which began to accept male students in 2008.[63] In the early 20th century, Oxford and Cambridge were widely perceived to be bastions of male privilege,[64] however the integration of women into Oxford moved forward during the First World War. In 1916 women were admitted as medical students on a par with men, and in 1917 the university accepted financial responsibility for women's examinations.[46]

On 7 October 1920 women became eligible for admission as full members of the university and were given the right to take degrees.[65] In 1927 the university's dons created a quota that limited the number of female students to a quarter that of men, a ruling which was not abolished until 1957.[54] However, during this period Oxford colleges were single sex, so the number of women was also limited by the capacity of the women's colleges to admit students. It was not until 1959 that the women's colleges were given full collegiate status.[66]

In 1974, Brasenose, Jesus, Wadham, Hertford and St Catherine's became the first previously all-male colleges to admit women.[67][68] The majority of men's colleges accepted their first female students in 1979,[68] with Christ Church following in 1980,[69] and Oriel becoming the last men's college to admit women in 1985.[70] Most of Oxford's graduate colleges were founded as coeducational establishments in the 20th century, with the exception of St Anthony's, which was founded as a men's college in 1950 and began to accept women only in 1962.[71] By 1988, 40% of undergraduates at Oxford were female;[72] in 2016, 45% of the student population, and 47% of undergraduate students, were female.[73][74]

In June 2017, Oxford announced that starting the following academic year, history students may choose to sit a take-home exam in some courses, with the intention that this will equalise rates of firsts awarded to women and men at Oxford.[75] That same summer, maths and computer science tests were extended by 15 minutes, in a bid to see if female student scores would improve.[76][77]

The detective novel Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, herself one of the first women to gain an academic degree from Oxford, is largely set in the all-female Shrewsbury College, Oxford (based on Sayers' own Somerville College[78]), and the issue of women's education is central to its plot. Social historian and Somerville College alumna Jane Robinson's book Bluestockings: A Remarkable History of the First Women to Fight for an Education gives a very detailed and immersive account of this history.[79]

Buildings and sites

Map

Main sites

Atrium of the Chemistry Research Laboratory, where the university has invested heavily in new facilities in recent years

The university is a "city university" in that it does not have a main campus; instead, colleges, departments, accommodation, and other facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. The Science Area, in which most science departments are located, is the area that bears closest resemblance to a campus. The ten-acre (4 hectare) Radcliffe Observatory Quarter in the northwest of the city is currently under development. However, the larger colleges' sites are of similar size to these areas.

In 2012-13, the university built the controversial one-hectare (400m × 25m) Castle Mill development of 4-5-storey blocks of student flats overlooking Cripley Meadow and the historic Port Meadow, blocking views of the spires in the city centre.[80] The development has been likened to building a "skyscraper beside Stonehenge".[81]

Parks

The University Parks are a 70-acre (28 ha) parkland area in the northeast of the city, near Keble College, Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall. It is open to the public during daylight hours. As well as providing gardens and exotic plants, the Parks contains numerous sports fields, used for official and unofficial fixtures, and also contains sites of special interest including the Genetic Garden, an experimental garden to elucidate and investigate evolutionary processes.

The Botanic Garden on the High Street is the oldest botanic garden in the UK. It contains over 8,000 different plant species on 1.8 ha ( acres). It is one of the most diverse yet compact major collections of plants in the world and includes representatives of over 90% of the higher plant families. The Harcourt Arboretum is a 130-acre (53 ha) site six miles (10 km) south of the city that includes native woodland and 67 acres (27 hectares) of meadow. The 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) Wytham Woods are owned by the university and used for research in zoology and climate change.

Organisation

As a collegiate university, Oxford's structure can be confusing to those unfamiliar with it. The university is a federation, comprising over forty self-governing colleges and halls, along with a central administration headed by the Vice-Chancellor.

Academic departments are located centrally within the structure of the federation; they are not affiliated with any particular college. Departments provide facilities for teaching and research, determine the syllabi and guidelines for the teaching of students, perform research, and deliver lectures and seminars.

Colleges arrange the tutorial teaching for their undergraduates, and the members of an academic department are spread around many colleges. Though certain colleges do have subject alignments (e.g., Nuffield College as a centre for the social sciences), these are exceptions, and most colleges will have a broad mix of academics and students from a diverse range of subjects. Facilities such as libraries are provided on all these levels: by the central university (the Bodleian), by the departments (individual departmental libraries, such as the English Faculty Library), and by colleges (each of which maintains a multi-discipline library for the use of its members).

Central governance

The university's formal head is the Chancellor, currently Lord Patten of Barnes, though as at most British universities, the Chancellor is a titular figure and is not involved with the day-to-day running of the university. The Chancellor is elected by the members of Convocation, a body comprising all graduates of the university, and holds office until death.[83]

Wellington Square, the name of which has become synonymous with the university's central administration

The Vice-Chancellor, currently Louise Richardson,[6][7] is the de facto head of the university. Five pro-vice-chancellors have specific responsibilities for education; research; planning and resources; development and external affairs; and personnel and equal opportunities. The University Council is the executive policy-forming body, which consists of the vice-chancellor as well as heads of departments and other members elected by Congregation, in addition to observers from the students' union. Congregation, the "parliament of the dons", comprises over 3,700 members of the university's academic and administrative staff, and has ultimate responsibility for legislative matters: it discusses and pronounces on policies proposed by the University Council.

Two university proctors, elected annually on a rotating basis from two of the colleges, are the internal ombudsmen who make sure that the university and its members adhere to its statutes. This role incorporates student welfare and discipline, as well as oversight of the university's proceedings. The university's professors are collectively referred to as the Statutory Professors of the University of Oxford. They are particularly influential in the running of the university's graduate programmes. Examples of statutory professors are the Chichele Professorships and the Drummond Professor of Political Economy. The various academic faculties, departments, and institutes are organised into four divisions, each with its own head and elected board. They are the Humanities division; the Social Sciences Division; the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division; and the Medical Sciences Division.

The University of Oxford is a "public university" in the sense that it receives some public money from the government, but it is a "private university" in the sense that it is entirely self-governing and, in theory, could choose to become entirely private by rejecting public funds.[84]

Colleges

Darbishire quad, Somerville College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford

To be a member of the university, all students, and most academic staff, must also be a member of a college or hall. There are 38 colleges of the University of Oxford and six Permanent Private Halls, each controlling its membership and with its own internal structure and activities.[17] Not all colleges offer all courses, but they generally cover a broad range of subjects.

The Permanent Private Halls were founded by different Christian denominations. One difference between a college and a PPH is that whereas colleges are governed by the fellows of the college, the governance of a PPH resides, at least in part, with the corresponding Christian denomination. The six current PPHs are:

The PPHs and colleges join together as the Conference of Colleges, which represents the common concerns of the several colleges of the university, to discuss matters of shared interest and to act collectively when necessary, such as in dealings with the central university.[85][86] The Conference of Colleges was established as a recommendation of the Franks Commission in 1965.[87]

Teaching members of the colleges (i.e. fellows and tutors) are collectively and familiarly known as dons, although the term is rarely used by the university itself. In addition to residential and dining facilities, the colleges provide social, cultural, and recreational activities for their members. Colleges have responsibility for admitting undergraduates and organising their tuition; for graduates, this responsibility falls upon the departments. There is no common title for the heads of colleges: the titles used include Warden, Provost, Principal, President, Rector, Master and Dean.

Finances

Dining hall at Christ Church. The hall is an important feature of the typical Oxford college, providing a place to both dine and socialise

In 2014/15, the university had an income of £1,429m; key sources were research grants (£522.9m) and academic fees (£258.3m).[88] The colleges had a total income of £415m,[89]

While the university has a larger annual income and operating budget, the colleges have a larger aggregate endowment: over £3.8bn compared to the university's £834m.[90] The Central University's endowment, along with some of the colleges', is managed by the university's wholly owned endowment management office, Oxford University Endowment Management, formed in 2007.[91] The university has substantial investments in fossil fuel companies, and in 2014 began consultations on whether it should follow some US universities which have committed to sell off their fossil fuel investments.[92]

The university was one of the first in the UK to raise money through a major public fundraising campaign, the Campaign for Oxford. The current campaign, its second, was launched in May 2008 and is entitled "Oxford Thinking - The Campaign for the University of Oxford".[93] This is looking to support three areas: academic posts and programmes, student support, and buildings and infrastructure;[94] having passed its original target of £1.25 billion in March 2012, the target was raised to £3 billion.[88] The campaign had raised a total of £2 billion by May 2015.[95]

In common with most British universities, prospective students apply through the UCAS application system, but prospective applicants for the University of Oxford, along with those for medicine, dentistry, and University of Cambridge applicants, must observe an earlier deadline of 15 October.[103] The Sutton Trust maintains that Oxford University and Cambridge University recruit disproportionately from 8 schools which accounted for 1,310 Oxbridge places during three years, coontrasted with 1,220 from 2,900 other schools.[104]

To allow a more personalised judgement of students, who might otherwise apply for both, undergraduate applicants are not permitted to apply to both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year. The only exceptions are applicants for organ scholarships[105] and those applying to read for a second undergraduate degree.[106]

Most applicants choose to apply to one of the individual colleges, which work with each other to ensure that the best students gain a place somewhere at the university regardless of their college preferences.[107] Shortlisting is based on achieved and predicted exam results, school references, and, in some subjects, written admission tests or candidate-submitted written work. Approximately 60% of applicants are shortlisted, although this varies by subject. If a large number of shortlisted applicants for a subject choose one college, then students who named that college may be reallocated randomly to under-subscribed colleges for the subject. The colleges then invite shortlisted candidates for interview, where they are provided with food and accommodation for around three days in December. Most applicants will be individually interviewed by academics at more than one college. Students from outside Europe can be interviewed remotely, for example, over the Internet.

Offers are sent out in early January, with each offer usually being from a specific college. One in four successful candidates receives an offer from a college that they did not apply to. Some courses may make "open offers" to some candidates, who are not assigned to a particular college until A Level results day in August.[108][109]

The university has come under criticism for the number of students it accepts from private schools;[110] for instance, Laura Spence's rejection from the university in 2000 led to widespread debate.[111] In 2016, the University of Oxford gave 59% of offers to UK students to students from state schools, while about 93% of all UK pupils and 86% of post-16 UK pupils are educated in state schools.[112][113][114] However, 64% of UK applicants were from state schools and the university notes that state school students apply disproportionately to oversubscribed subjects.[115] Oxford University spends over £6 million per year on outreach programs to encourage applicants from underrepresented demographics.[112]

In 2018 the university's annual admissions report revealed that approximately one third of Oxford's colleges had accepted three or fewer black applicants.[116]David Lammy said, "This is social apartheid and it is utterly unrepresentative of life in modern Britain."[117]

Teaching and degrees

Undergraduate teaching is centred on the tutorial, where 1-4 students spend an hour with an academic discussing their week's work, usually an essay (humanities, most social sciences, some mathematical, physical, and life sciences) or problem sheet (most mathematical, physical, and life sciences, and some social sciences). The university itself is responsible for conducting examinations and conferring degrees. Undergraduate teaching takes place during three eight-week academic terms: Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity.[118] (These are officially known as 'Full Term': 'Term' is a lengthier period with little practical significance.) Internally, the weeks in a term begin on Sundays, and are referred to numerically, with the initial week known as "first week", the last as "eighth week" and with the numbering extended to refer to weeks before and after term (for example "-1st week" and "0th week" precede term). Undergraduates must be in residence from Thursday of 0th week. These teaching terms are shorter than those of most other British universities,[119] and their total duration amounts to less than half the year. However, undergraduates are also expected to do some academic work during the three holidays (known as the Christmas, Easter, and Long Vacations).

Research degrees at the master's and doctoral level are conferred in all subjects studied at graduate level at the university.

Scholarships and financial support

There are many opportunities for students at Oxford to receive financial help during their studies. The Oxford Opportunity Bursaries, introduced in 2006, are university-wide means-based bursaries available to any British undergraduate, with a total possible grant of £10,235 over a 3-year degree. In addition, individual colleges also offer bursaries and funds to help their students. For graduate study, there are many scholarships attached to the university, available to students from all sorts of backgrounds, from Rhodes Scholarships to the relatively new Weidenfeld Scholarships.[120] Oxford also offers the Clarendon Scholarship which is open to graduate applicants of all nationalities.[121] The Clarendon Scholarship is principally funded by Oxford University Press in association with colleges and other partnership awards.[122][123] In 2016, Oxford University announced that it is to run its first free online economics course as part of a "massive open online course" (Mooc) scheme, in partnership with a US online university network.[124] The course available is called 'From Poverty to Prosperity: Understanding Economic Development'.

Students successful in early examinations are rewarded by their colleges with scholarships and exhibitions, normally the result of a long-standing endowment, although since the introduction of tuition fees the amounts of money available are purely nominal. Scholars, and exhibitioners in some colleges, are entitled to wear a more voluminous undergraduate gown; "commoners" (originally those who had to pay for their "commons", or food and lodging) are restricted to a short, sleeveless garment. The term "scholar" in relation to Oxford therefore has a specific meaning as well as the more general meaning of someone of outstanding academic ability. In previous times, there were "noblemen commoners" and "gentlemen commoners", but these ranks were abolished in the 19th century. "Closed" scholarships, available only to candidates who fitted specific conditions such as coming from specific schools, were abolished in the 1970s.[125]

Libraries

The university maintains the largest university library system in the UK,[19] and, with over 11 million volumes housed on 120 miles (190 km) of shelving, the Bodleian group is the second-largest library in the UK, after the British Library. The Bodleian is a legal deposit library, which means that it is entitled to request a free copy of every book published in the UK. As such, its collection is growing at a rate of over three miles (five kilometres) of shelving every year.[126]

The Clarendon Building is home to many senior Bodleian Library staff and previously housed the university's own central administration

The Bodleian Libraries group was formed in 2000, bringing the Bodleian Library and some of the subject libraries together.[128] It now comprises 28[129] libraries, a number of which have been created by bringing previously separate collections together, including the Sackler Library, Social Science Library and Radcliffe Science Library.[128] Another major product of this collaboration has been a joint integrated library system, OLIS (Oxford Libraries Information System),[130] and its public interface, SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online), which provides an electronic catalogue covering all member libraries, as well as the libraries of individual colleges and other faculty libraries, which are not members of the group but do share cataloguing information.[131]

A new book depository opened in South Marston, Swindon in October 2010,[132] and recent building projects include the remodelling of the New Bodleian building, which was renamed the Weston Library when it reopened in 2015.[133][134] The renovation is designed to better showcase the library's various treasures (which include a Shakespeare First Folio and a Gutenberg Bible) as well as temporary exhibitions.

Adjoining the Museum of Natural History is the Pitt Rivers Museum, founded in 1884, which displays the university's archaeological and anthropological collections, currently holding over 500,000 items. It recently built a new research annexe; its staff have been involved with the teaching of anthropology at Oxford since its foundation, when as part of his donation General Augustus Pitt Rivers stipulated that the university establish a lectureship in anthropology.

Oxford is regularly ranked within the top 10 universities in the world and is currently ranked first in the world in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings,[147][148] as well as the Forbes's World University Rankings.[149] It held the number one position in the Times Good University Guide for eleven consecutive years,[150] and the medical school has also maintained first place in the "Clinical, Pre-Clinical & Health" table of the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for the past seven consecutive years.[151] The THE has also recognised Oxford as one of the world's "six super brands" on its World Reputation Rankings, along with Berkeley, Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.[152] The university is fifth worldwide on the US News ranking.[153] Its Saïd Business School came 23rd in the world in Financial TimesGlobal MBA Ranking.[154]

Oxford is ranked 5th best university worldwide and 1st in Britain for forming CEOs according to the Professional Ranking World Universities.[155] It is ranked first in the UK for the quality of its graduates as chosen by the recruiters of the UK's major companies.[156]

In the 2018 Complete University Guide, all 38 subjects offered by Oxford rank within the top 10 nationally meaning Oxford was one of only two multi-faculty universities (along with Cambridge) in the UK to have 100% of their subjects in the top 10.[157] Computer Science, Medicine, philosophy, Politics and Psychology were ranked first in the UK by the guide.[158]

According to the QS World University Rankings by Subject, the University of Oxford also ranks as number one in the world for four Humanities disciplines: English Language and Literature, Modern Languages, Geography, and History. It also ranks 2nd globally for Anthropology, Archaeology, Law, Medicine, Politics & International Studies, and Psychology.[159]

Student life

Traditions

An undergraduate student at the University of Oxford in subfusc for matriculation

Academic dress is required for examinations, matriculation, disciplinary hearings, and when visiting university officers. A referendum held amongst the Oxford student body in 2015 showed 76% against making it voluntary in examinations - 8,671 students voted, with the 40.2% turnout the highest ever for a UK student union referendum.[160] This was widely interpreted by students as being a vote on not so much making subfusc voluntary, but rather, in effect, abolishing it by default, in that if a minority of people came to exams without subfusc, the rest would soon follow.[161] In July 2012 the regulations regarding academic dress were modified to be more inclusive to transgender people.[162]

Other traditions and customs vary by college. For example, some colleges have formal hall six times a week, but in others this only happens occasionally. At most colleges these formal meals require gowns to be worn, and a Latin grace is said.

Balls are major events held by colleges; the largest, held triennially in 9th week of Trinity Term, are called commemoration balls; the dress code is usually white tie. Many other colleges hold smaller events during the year that they call summer balls or parties. These are usually held on an annual or irregular basis, and are usually black tie.

Clubs and societies

Sport is played between college teams, in tournaments known as cuppers (the term is also used for some non-sporting competitions). In addition to these there are higher standard university wide groups. Significant focus is given to annual varsity matches played against Cambridge, the most famous of which is The Boat Race, watched by a TV audience of between five and ten million viewers. This outside interest reflects the importance of rowing to many of those within the university. Much attention is given to the termly intercollegiate rowing regattas: Christ Church Regatta, Torpids and Summer Eights. A blue is an award given to those who compete at the university team level in certain sports. As well as traditional sports, there are teams for activities such as Octopush and quidditch.

Most academic areas have student societies of some form which are open to students studying all courses, for example the Scientific Society. There are groups for almost all faiths, political parties, countries and cultures.

The Oxford Union (not to be confused with the Oxford University Student Union) hosts weekly debates and high-profile speakers. There have historically been elite invite-only societies such as the Bullingdon Club.

Student union and common rooms

The Oxford University Student Union, formerly better known by its acronym OUSU and now rebranded as Oxford SU,[163] exists to represent students in the university's decision-making, to act as the voice for students in the national higher education policy debate, and to provide direct services to the student body. Reflecting the collegiate nature of the University of Oxford itself, OUSU is both an association of Oxford's more than 21,000 individual students and a federation of the affiliated college common rooms, and other affiliated organisations that represent subsets of the undergraduate and graduate students. The OUSU Executive Committee includes six full-time salaried sabbatical officers, who generally serve in the year following completion of their Final Examinations.

The importance of collegiate life is such that for many students their college JCR (Junior Common Room, for undergraduates) or MCR (Middle Common Room, for graduates) is seen as more important than OUSU. JCRs and MCRs each have a committee, with a president and other elected students representing their peers to college authorities. Additionally, they organise events and often have significant budgets to spend as they wish (money coming from their colleges and sometimes other sources such as student-run bars). (It is worth noting that JCR and MCR are terms that are used to refer to rooms for use by members, as well as the student bodies.) Not all colleges use this JCR/MCR structure, for example Wadham College's entire student population is represented by a combined Students' Union and purely graduate colleges have different arrangements.

Notable alumni

Throughout its history, a sizeable number of Oxford alumni, known as Oxonians, have become notable in many varied fields, both academic and otherwise. A total of 69 Nobel prize-winners have studied or taught at Oxford, with prizes won in all six categories.[22]
More information on notable members of the university can be found in the individual college articles. An individual may be associated with two or more colleges, as an undergraduate, postgraduate and/or member of staff.

Oxford in literature and other media

Aerial panorama of the university

The University of Oxford is the setting for numerous works of fiction. Oxford was mentioned in fiction as early as 1400 when Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales referred to a "Clerk [student] of Oxenford". By 1989, 533 novels based in Oxford had been identified and the number continues to rise.[242] Famous literary works range from Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, to the trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which features an alternate-reality version of the university.

^ abH. E. Salter and Mary D. Lobel (editors) (1954). "The University of Oxford". A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 3: The University of Oxford. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 2014.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)

^William D. Rubinstein, "The social origins and career patterns of Oxford and Cambridge matriculants, 1840-1900." Historical Research 82.218 (2009): 715-730, data on pages 719 and 724.

^For more details see Mark C. Curthoys, "Origins and Destinations: the social mobility of Oxford men and women" in Michael G. Brock and Mark C. Curthoys, eds. The History of the University of Oxford Volume 7: Nineteenth-Century (2000) part 2, pp 571-95.

^Handbook to the University of Oxford. University of Oxford. 1965. p. 43.

^"St Anne's History Brochure"(PDF). st-annes.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018. Only in 1959 did the five women's colleges acquire full collegiate status so that their councils became governing bodies and they were, like the men's colleges, fully self-governing.

^Diver, Tony (22 January 2018). "Oxford University gives women more time to pass exams". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2018. Students taking maths and computer science examinations in the summer of 2017 were given an extra 15 minutes to complete their papers, after dons ruled that "female candidates might be more likely to be adversely affected by time pressure"

^Dennis, Farrington; Palfreyman, David (21 February 2011). "OFFA and £6000-9000 tuition fees"(PDF). OxCHEPS Occasional Paper No. 39. Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies. Retrieved 2011. Note, however, that any university which does not want funding from HEFCE can, as a private corporation, charge whatever tuition fees it likes (exactly as does, say, the University of Buckingham or BPP University College). Under existing legislation and outside of the influence of the HEFCE-funding mechanism upon universities, Government can no more control university tuition fees than it can dictate the price of socks in Marks & Spencer. Universities are not part of the State and they are not part of the public sector; Government has no reserve powers of intervention even in a failing institution.

^Sastry, Tom; Bekhradnia, Bahram (25 September 2007). "The Academic Experience of Students in English Universities (2007 report)"(PDF). Higher Education Policy Institute. pp. footnote 14. Archived from the original(PDF) on 9 July 2013. Retrieved 2007. Even within Russell Group institutions, it is remarkable how consistently Oxford and Cambridge appear to require more effort of their students than other universities. On the other hand, they have fewer weeks in the academic year than other universities, so the extent to which this is so may be exaggerated by these results.